Everyone in the second floor lounge gathered around as Will carefully removed the little ant Parasites from the foot and separated each of them into their own vials. In the end, there were 8 Parasites.

"Looks like your luck is quite good." Jacques patted Will on the shoulder.

"Are they alive?" Jason asked, leaning in to view the ants. "Oh, they're waking up." He said, when he noticed them start to move around the vials.

As they moved, Will noticed three of them were moving around faster than the rest.

No wonder it was so strong, it had three Cat-1 Parasites. It must have eaten a lot to evolve three of them.

Will casually grabbed two of the vials with the Category 1's. "Seems like they're all alive, so everyone can take their share."

Everyone took their own vial without suspecting a thing.

"What are those?" Karen suddenly appeared and asked.

"You're finally up?" Donny smiled, seeing that Karen was finally awake.

"How are you feeling?" Gerald asked in concern.

"Like my head is killing me, but I'm okay." Karen lightly rubbed her bandaged head.

"It's good that you're okay, and thanks for saving us back there, Care." Gerald gave her a pat on the shoulder.

"It was nothing." Karen said bashfully, she turned to the vials in everyone's hands. "So, what are those?"

"We'll explain later." Will said. He was also glad to see Karen up and that there was nothing visibly wrong with her. He'd have to keep an eye on her for the next couple of days to make sure.

They also split up the human ant's chitin. The lucky person who ended up with the third Category 1 Parasite was Jason.

His luck is also quite good. Will thought. Speaking of luck...

"Your aim was pretty good earlier, Jason. Do you have experience shooting?" Will asked as they all went out to their vehicles to pack away their things and prepare to finally leave.

"I already asked, he doesn't even have any gaming XP, he's a total noob." Donny said from their jeep.

"It must be my Cree lineage. I was going all Legolas on it, like blap blap and shit, and that ant was all like sreeee and shit." Jason said as he mimed out his actions.

Will and Donny shared a glance.

"Did you awaken your abilities?" Donny asked.

Jason had very likely awakened a hunter bloodline with excellent depth perception and hand-eye coordination, and didn't know how close to the truth he was.

"Nah, I haven't seen any symptoms."

"But have you noticed any changes?"

"Uh...now that you mentioned it, I feel like my sense of smell has become more sensitive." Jason scrunched up his face. "I thought it was just this place at first but now that it's cleared, I can still smell the cig I just put out earlier inside the building."

Will left the two friends to chat and approached Norman.

"So you're heading straight to Vancouver from here?" Will asked.

"That's the plan. It would be hard to do so if I returned to Nirvana, especially if we want to keep these remains for ourselves." Norman gestured at the giant man who was packing the animal remains in the trunk of their SUV.

"Do you think Joseph will continue trying to look for me?"

"It depends on what Vance reports to him but my advice would be to avoid going anywhere near Nirvana."

That was what Will planned on doing anyway, this included Hope as well.

"Then could you gave me all the info you have on Joseph and Nirvana?"

"What do you plan to do with it?" Norman crossed his arm and raise his brow.

"I plan on giving it to the government."

"I thought you were wanted by them."

"Not anymore." Will gave a grin, to which Norman mirrored with his own.

"Alright then." Norman agreed.

----------------------------------------

"That wasn't so bad, was it?" Donny asked as everyone drove out of the complex and went their separate ways.

Will thought back to the cordial atmosphere they had working together. He didn't know if it was because it was still too early for people to completely lose their morals or because he just happened to meet easygoing people, but the encounter wasn't as cutthroat as he had come to expect of people. Even Jerry had no intention to kill anyone.

Will hoped that the next time he met everyone, they'd still be the same.

"Yeah, I guess so." Will answered.

As he drove down the road, they saw a familiar vehicle. Will slowed down and saw Jacques' vehicle parked next to another one.

"What's he doing there?" Donny wondered.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

They approached and soon found out the answer. The vehicle he was parked next to was Jerry's, who had his head leaned against the window. There were multiple bullet holes in him and the vehicle that originated from the passenger side. Jerry's two team members were also dead in their seats.

"That's horrible..." Karen looked away.

This scene before him was more in line with the world Will had come to know.

"The shots early...it must have been Noah..." Jacques said somberly.

Jacques' team placed the corpses away, together with the other corpses of their fallen comrades, before saying their farewells again and driving both vehicles away.

Will eventually looped around the block and came back to complex when no one was around.

"What are you doing?" Karen asked.

"I forgot to grab some things, wait here."

Will left the jeep and followed a certain trail in his UV vision that eventually led him to some bushes a bit of distance away from the complex. After a little bit of a tussle against a drained and wounded raven, and an empowered swing of his Halligan bar, Will soon came back to the jeep with its corpse.

He then drove over to the field and Donny helped him grab the Category 1 corpses he had left in a small pile, including the human ant they had tossed aside after deshelling. This was as much as he could take for now, especially with his injury, he would come back for the rest tomorrow.

When he returned to the jeep, he tossed out the tracking device Vance had planted before he had Donny drive.

"I think chasing down the raven opened up my wound." Will said as he sat down in the back next to Karen and redressed his wound.

"Ouch." Karen said when she saw the wound. "How did you get that?"

"From fighting that ant."

"You actually fought it?!" Karen asked in surprise. "Why would you do that?"

Will raised his brow at her. "Why would you drive a truck into it?"

"Come on, there's no way any of us could have known it would lift the truck like that."

"It is an ant." Donny countered from the driver seat.

"An ant's strength comes from its size or the volume it takes up or something like that, I think I saw it on a documentary."

"But it was also a super zombie."

Will leaned his head back to rest as the two bickered.

When they finally left the complex, they received some cheers from people who lived nearby. The people whistled and waved down at them from up in their homes. Seeing this picked up their mood, Donny turned around and gave Will a smile.

When they arrived at the compound, Monica immediately came outside to meet them.

"Something is wrong with Diana!" She said as they exited the car. She suddenly noticed their bandages. "You guys are hurt?"

"It's nothing." Karen brushed it off.

"What's wrong with Diana?" Donny asked.

"Oh, come inside and take a look." Monica was reminded of her original purpose and led them inside to the cage that Broski was guarding, where the hen was kept in. Except the problem was that there wasn't a hen inside anymore.

Diana had grown to almost take up the entire cage and reached up to Will's thigh. Her beak had elongated into a half-beak, half-snout, and she now had a long tail that was a meter in length. Her scales had grown out completely but could mostly only be seen around her face. They had the same blend of colors as her feathers—brown, beige, and orange, with some red on her crest.

"Is that a freaking velociraptor?" Karen asked in alarm.

"More like a half-chicken, half-velociraptor." Donny said with his hand in his chin. "A velocichicken."

"It happened over the last couple of days." Monica explained. "She started eating more and more, and then she just kept growing more and more."

"A lot of big eaters now." Grandpa said, giving Broski a pat on the head. Broski's tail was wagging as he watched the cage, excited to play with a new friend.

"When are we letting her out?" Donny asked.

"You're seriously going to let a dinosaur out in the house?" Karen asked with an incredulous look on her face.

"We'll let her out after Karen adapts to the virus." Will said. "But we'll have to train Diana."

"Yes!" Donny pumped his fist.

"You're both insane."

"Do you think her eggs will taste good?" Monica wondered.

"Woof!"

"You're all insane."

----------------------------------------

Donny gave a brief explanation about Parasites to Karen and Monica while Will was cleaning up. Afterwards, Karen was busy digesting the news while Will brought Monica into the clinic and asked for the healing Parasite.

"I've long healed already, so that thing is useless sitting inside of me. I would be mad if you didn't take it back, especially with how bad that looks." Monica said as Will took off his shirt. She was staring at his well-developed muscles for a moment before Will unraveled his bandages. Monica cringed from seeing his exposed bone and instantly looked away. "Okay...that's a lot worse than I thought. How are you even still standing?"

"It's fine. Let's quickly do it."

Monica also took off her shirt and Will performed a quick procedure, removing the hookworm Parasite from her. After cleaning off her blood, he transferred the Parasite over to where his wound was and patched himself up.

Once he was done, Will rested for a bit before he went out to the jeep and found the raven corpse. Looking at it now that all the heat had left its body, he could see that there was still something inside it. After a bit of effort, Will removed a white-yellowish insect. This had been the source of the fluid the raven had expelled.

It was a C-rank termite Parasite, and judging from the amount of fluids it expelled and how hard it was when Will went back to the complex to check on the substance, a Category 1.

Like the ant, termites had the ability to emit pheromones. But what made termites C-rank was its two other abilities, and Will had to pick which one he wanted to use between the two.

The first ability was when a termite felt that it was in danger, it would release a defensive fluid that would harden into rubber when exposed to air. Of course, as a Parasite ability, it wouldn't be limited to only defense. People usually placed the Parasite on their hands in this case.

The second ability was only attainable if he placed the Parasite near his digestive system. Similar to the tapeworm Parasite he found at the wastewater treatment plant, it was an ability related to digestion. But instead of allowing someone to consume more food like the tapeworm Parasite did, the termite Parasite allowed the host to digest cellulose.

The advantage of this was that he would be able to advance his evolution by eating evolved grass, plants, and herbs in the future without having them processed first. He could also survive on grass and hay like cows and horses do, if he needed.

Will stashed it away for now. He would have to decide what to do with two Parasites that aided digestion after he evolved to Category 1.

After pulling such a long shift, Will, Donny, and Karen cleaned themselves up, enjoyed a home cooked dinner by Grandpa and Monica—especially after days of only eating rations, before hitting their beds and passing out cold.

----------------------------------------

Although Will felt much better the next day, his wound would still take at least a week to heal. But he still had work to do. He and Donny went over to the warehouse near the compound where they had parked the truck with the Metamorphosis Pod on it.

"So what's the plan?" Donny asked. "Is this the last time we're using this thing?"

Will nodded. "Cat-2 won't be sustainable, and the environment won't be able to recover from that kind of damage done. We'll sell it just before the government starts cracking down on the pods. I know a couple dirty companies we can toss this bomb onto."

They covered up the large pod before driving back to the wastewater treatment plant.

This trip took twice the amount of time it did to drive back home yesterday because they had to maneuver the truck around deserted cars or sometimes stop to move obstacles out of their way by hand. Donny also had to clear any zeroes on his own since Will wasn't in any condition to exert himself too much.

It was already late morning by the time they neared the plant but they were in for a surprise once they arrived.

"Where did all the bodies go?" Donny wondered aloud.

As they drove closer to the field where all the bodies had been, all they could see were bloodstains and tire tracks left by multiple vehicles, including a few trucks.

"Looks like someone came here before us."

"Nirvana?"

"Likely."

"They don't have a pod though..." Donny rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably.

"Yeah..." Will narrowed his eyes as he scanned the empty red field. "It looks like Joseph Giles might be more insane than I thought."